Commander floats idea of oil plumes surfacing “at a later date”, Will “go on for a long, long time”

There have been reports of very large undersea plumes of oil thousands of feet below the ocean's surface. So when you say there's the possibility of the shore being impacted for four to six weeks, how do you come up with that four to six week number? And are you taking into account these very large plumes of oil that are out there and very difficult to sort of gauge where they're going?

Allen responded, "What we're going to continue to watch for is the oil we can't see," he added, "But the ultimate impact of this spill... whether or not oil surfaces at a later date will be the subject of long-term surveillance."

The Commander concludes that, "Impacts are going to go on for a long, long time."